Unidata: Community, Science, and Technology; in that order.

Abstract:

Unidata’s mission is to provide the data services, tools, and cyberinfrastructure leadership that advance Earth system science, enhance educational opportunities, and broaden participation. The Unidata community has grown from around 250 individual participants in the early years to tens of thousands of users in over 150 countries. Today, Unidata’s products and services are used on every continent and by every sector of the geoscience enterprise: universities, government agencies, private sector, and other non-governmental organizations.

Certain traits and ethos are shared by and common to most successful organizations. They include a healthy organizational culture grounded by some core values and guiding principles. In that environment, there is an implicit awareness of the connection between mission of an organization, its values, and its day-to-day activities, and behaviours of a passionate staff. Distinguishing characteristics include: vigorous engagement of the community served by those organizations backed by strong and active governance, unwavering commitment to seek input and feedback from users, and trust of those users, earned over many years through consistent, dependable, and high-quality service. Meanwhile, changing data volumes and standards, new computing power, and expanding scientific questions sound continue to shape the geoscience community. These issues were the drivers for founding Unidata, a cornerstone data facility, in 1984. Advances in geoscience occur at the junction of community, science, and technology and this submission will feature lessons from Unidata’s thirty year history operating at this nexus. Specifically, this presentation will feature guiding principles for the program, governance mechanisms, and approaches for balancing science and technology in a community-driven program.